When you love to fish you’re gonna want to be on the water soaking that line every chance you get. But what do you do with those days when you can’t be out fishing? The women of The Outdoors Quest have a variety of tasks, habits, and interests that help fill those otherwise wasted days with some necessary activities that will make your next quest an incredible adventure.
There’s always a need for Maintenance and Repairs
Cleaning your gear:
Kat almost always wears rubber boots when she fishes. It’s rare for her to get home and not have them covered in fishy smelling mud and gunk. These down days are a great time to clean up the shoes and buckets and other gear that has collected smells and goopies that aren’t necessarily the best to keep lurking around.
Replacing line and cleaning reels:
Do you have a favorite combo? A rod and reel that goes with you virtually every time you go fishing? We fish year round and there are certain rods and reels that go with us everywhere we go. After a year or even a few months of fishing rivers, lakes, and streams; those setups can get rather dirty. Sand, mud, and slime working its way up into the gears and brackets of your reel will make smooth casting and retrieval difficult. Coating your rod guides with this grime can lead to rust and damage that will reduce your equipment’s lifespan. A few q-tips and some rubbing alcohol can do wonders to clean a reel and get it working at its best once again. Just remember to add a couple drips of reel oil when you put your reel back together!
Re-organize your tacklebox:
When you’re fishing you’re likely to toss lures, hooks, and other gear into various spots that aren’t exactly where you intend to store them. AJ and Kat are notorious for leaving weights and swivels in their pockets after a long day of fishing. Chances are you do the same. Take your down day as an opportunity to collect those misplaced tools that need to be in your box.
Sharpen you knife, secure bolts, and tighten screws:
cutting up bait will dull even the best knifes over time. Pliers, ring splitters, and braid scissors have bolts and screws that will come loose with use. There’s no worse feeling than having a fish at the edge of your boat and suddenly they’re gone. This is when you will realize your loose pliers nicked your hook just enough that your pb bass can break your hook. A dull knife and you’ll spend more of your day cutting up your shad than you will casting your lines.
Practice casting:
When you’re learning to fish, or learning to use a new setup, style and aim can suffer. Getting an old bucket and setting it up in an open space gives you a perfect target for learning to skip or flip docks. Put a few buckets or mugs at various distances and learn to target distances for those days you get to sight fish.
Replace hooks:
Your favorite lures will get warn and weak. Hooks will bend, barbs will break off. Now is the perfect time to replace those hooks with new, sharp hooks that will improve your hook set ratios. Got a new lure with some cheap hooks that just don’t seem to be a good quality? Replace them with some solid, strong hooks that you can have confidence in. You’ll thank yourself later when that fish that should have gotten away lands on the bank at your feet!
Repair nets, juglines, etc:
The more you use your gear, the more warn it will become. When you’re in need of help like a net for that fighter you’re struggling to get to the shore, or you’ve been using your juglines for the past month near rocks and under water structures; your gear will get frayed and damaged. Take an hour to study your gear, look for those frays and tears, and nicks that are likely to break when you’re least likely to recover. Fix them now, before they become a problem, before you feel your heart beating in your throat because that trophy is swimming away from you 100% unhindered. Successful fishing is 80 percent preparation, 19 percent preservation, and 1 percent luck. Improve your odds by having a solid preparation plan.
Make leader lines:
If you fish with live bait you definitely need leader lines. Many styles of fishing require leader lines, and invariably, they will require different sizes or lengths. It will save you hours out of your life if you set up your leader lines when you’re sitting around looking for something to pass the time. It won’t require concentration or massive focus but it will be time consuming so make the best of your opportunities. Do the leader lines when you’re sitting on the couch watching tv instead of when you’re on your boat or at the bank rushing to get your lines back into the water.
Our Article “Fishing for Aligator Gar 101” will give you a good foundation to the importance of leader lines.
Learning
Videos on youtube:
Tactical Bassin, Lakefork Guy, Wired 2 Fish, etc. have hours of lessons on their channels for everything from how to tie specific knots and set up specific rigs to where and when to fish for a specific species. You’re bound to find someone who can teach you what you’re wanting to learn.
The Outdoors Quest is working to put together an educational platform on YouTube showing you the details behind various skills that can improve your outdoors quests. Check us out on one of those rainy days.
Internet searches:
There are knots charts, graphs of different types of gear, species diagrams, photos, and step-by-step explanations of how to do everything you could possibly want to know about fishing. Even social media has opportunities to learn from pages and groups that can teach you what you are wanting to learn or improve. There is The Outdoors Quest Group; Women Fishing; & Women Who Hunt And Fish just to name a few options.
There’s a wealth of knowledge in our other articles to help you start this quest for knowledge. Check out A “Woman’s Guide to Picking the Right Fishing Rod” for a comprehensive breakdown of the rod choices that can help even knowledgeable anglers.
Practice knots:
Is there a new knot you’ve wanted to learn but haven’t had the time to practice? Or you have a knot you like to use but you struggle with it every time you try to tie it? Maybe you struggle with the double Uni knot or you’ve heard about the egg loop knot but never quite figured out the steps. This down time is a perfect opportunity to practice. Make it a game. Learn to tie it faster or without looking or tie it right handed when you usually tie it left handed. There are apps with videos for the steps to tying knots, and YouTube videos to walk you through the steps, or (if you’re really brave) books that detail all the knots you could possible want to know. The more versatile you become at knots, the more success you’ll have at landing those monsters of the sea!
New skills
Making weights:
Melting lead and pouring your own weights is not massively time consuming but it does require a few tools and a few safety precautions. Ultimately, though, you’ll find it to be an invaluable skill. There have been many times we have needed weights for upcoming fishing trips only to be left floundering when the 8 “local” fishing stores are all sold out of the weights we needed. AJ and Kat each have their “go-to” weights that they use frequently. You probably do also. Just a Do-It mold or two in the garage and you’re next fishing trip can be massively easier because you’re not at the mercy of your local store.
Panting lures:
For the more art inclined angler, old lures that are beat up and chipped can offer hours of occupied time if you learn to repaint or touch-up those proven treasures. You might also consider how much more appealing they’ll become to the fish you’re angling for. This could even lead to learning a new skill like airbrushing or powder painting jig heads or any number of other entertaining skills.
Marling Baits teaches all kinds of techniques for painting lures.
check out his YouTube channel for tips and tricks on your next not fishing fishing day…
Pouring plastics:
A growing hobby in the fishing world is soft plastic baits. While the hobby is not cheap, the savings can be rather astronomical once you get the routine down. Pouring your own baits can give you a since of pride and accomplishment, ensure you always have the lures you want for your upcoming fishing trips, and make you the talk fo the crowd when you catch fish after fish on a hand made lure that no one else in the fishing party has.
Tying flys:
This is another growing pastime for anglers and it’s not just for fly fishing any more. Crappie and pan fish lures are becoming very popular for hand tying projects. You have the freedom to pick your own colors, styles, weights, and creatures to mimic. One thing you’ll quickly learn is that fish are often more inclined to bite a lure they haven’t seen before than to go after the jig that the last 30 fishermen have dropped into their brush pile.
No wasted time
Just because you can’t be out on the water, doesn’t mean you can’t be “fishing.” The world of fishing requires a great deal of land time that you can make a part of your life quite easily. When you’re sitting on the couch watching a movie after a long day at the office, practice tying your knotts. When you’re sitting on the patio, watching the rain pouring down on your yard, replace your hooks or practice your kayak sitting casts. Make use of your down time and you’ll be more prepared for your fishing time, more successful with your fishing in total, and–ultimately–more satisfied with your fishing in general.